


Wrath

by Ruuger



Series: Episode tags for The Mentalist [9]
Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Character Study, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e23-24 Strawberries and Cream, Gen, POV Alternating, Season/Series 03, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-16
Updated: 2011-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-21 11:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/pseuds/Ruuger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five minutes later.</p><p>Episode tag for the S3 finale, "Strawberries and Cream".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rigsby

**Author's Note:**

> Written for caseland.

He doesn't give a damn about Jane and Red John. He knows that he should, because Jane is a colleague, a friend, but all he can think about now is Grace, and how close he came to losing her.

He's finally got her on the phone, so he's only barely aware of the tinny voice on the open police radio calling in all units to handle a two-forty-six at the Pinewood shopping mall. Caucasian man in a grey suit opened fire in a crowded food court, killing one. Situation over, the man has surrendered his weapon and has been apprehended by the mall security.

Cho hits the brakes, bringing the van around with an illegal U-turn, and Rigsby swears, the momentum throwing him forward in his seat.

_"What is it? Wayne, what happened?"_

"Nothing, it's nothing," he tells her as he glares at Cho, fighting the urge to tell him to turn the car around again. "Are you sure you're all right?"

She hesitates, but only for a second. "I'm fine and so's Hightower and the kids. Lisbon is hurt, but it's not bad."

Her voice is calm and professional, not the voice of a woman who has just killed her fiance, but he knows her well enough to hear the pain underneath. He wishes that he could be there with her, to hold her and to comfort her, but more than anything else he wishes that he could have been there to kill that bastard O'Laughlin himself.

His fingers curl around the phone as the rage that he usually manages to keep in check threatens to surface, and he thinks that he's never hated anyone as much as he hates O'Laughlin. Never wanted so badly for someone to suffer and die slowly.

"I have to go and help the Boss. I'll call you when we get to the hospital."

"Grace-" he starts, too late, the line closing with a click.

The van pulls over in front of the mall and Cho jumps out, crossing the parking lot in quick strides. Once alone, Rigsby slams his fist against the dashboard, the pain momentarily clearing his mind. For a few seconds he stares at his knuckles, imagines the blood there as O'Laughlin's, before following Cho.


	2. Cho

With the flashing lights of the police cars as his guide, Cho makes his way through the rubbernecking passer-bys just in time to see Jane being pushed into a squad car on the other side of the parking lot, but a SacPD officer intercepts him before he gets there.

"This is a closed area. You can't go in there."

"CBI," Cho growls, flashing his badge as he pushes past the cop, but the squad car pulls away before he reaches it, taking Jane with it.

He swears loud enough to make sure that the cop hears, and then turns on his heels and heads back inside the mall instead.

Red John is a middle-aged man in a neat suit, no different from any other middle-aged man that Cho saw at the food court earlier. He studies the body, certain that there must have been something that he missed, some sign that this man was the one that they'd hunted for so long. He's gritting his teeth so hard that he can almost taste blood, and though he tries to tell himself he's angry at Red John, he knows that he's really angry at himself for leaving Jane behind.

He should have guessed that Red John would be there, should have guessed that Jane knew that Red John would be there, should have told Rigsby to go help Lisbon and the others and should have stayed behind with Jane himself.

That has always been the number one rule: Never leave Jane unattended, especially when Red John is involved. And he forgot about it.

He turns away from the body and takes out his phone, dialling Lisbon's number.

Intellectually, he knows that it's not his fault, that Jane is a grown man capable of making his own decisions, and yet he can't help thinking about all the things he should have done differently. Can't shake the feeling that he's let a friend down again.


	3. Lisbon

"Jane killed Red John."

In cold blood, she hears, even if Cho doesn't say it.

She leans back against the wall and closes her eyes, anger filling her like the rising tide. And as much as she wants to be angry at Jane for doing this or at herself for failing to stop him, she finds that she's actually angry at Red John.

Blood trickles through the make-shift bandages on her shoulder and when Van Pelt presses harder on the wound, there is a flash of pain that feeds the anger and swallows it.

She had sometimes wondered if she could do it herself - just kill Red John instead of arresting him. Not out of some misguided sense of justice or vengeance, but to simply put an end to it all, like cutting away a cancerous tumour.

She looks at Van Pelt, and she thinks of the bridesmaid dress that she will never wear, thinks of Jane going to jail for murder, thinks of Sam and his team, and of Jane's family, and she knows now that given chance, she would have put her gun against Red John's head and blown his brains out herself.

And she finds that she hates him for that most of all.


	4. Van Pelt

She doesn't think she can ever go home again. Not to the wedding dress waiting in her bedroom, the left-over invitations and the bridal magazines on her coffee table, all the little reminders of a life that she will never have. She'll have to cancel everything - the church, the caterer, the flowers - and she's going to have to do it all alone. She knows that it's unprofessional to think about those things now, and that if Hightower and Lisbon knew, they would think of her as just a silly little girl, but it's like her brain is stuck on a groove, unable to move on.

As she presses the wad of bandages against the wound on Lisbon's shoulder, she wonders how she's going to tell this to her parents. Thinks of how she'll have to call every friend and relative that she'd invited, her friends and Craig's, and she wonders if his mother knew what he was?

And she can't help thinking about Dan, can't help asking herself why it had to be her again, why it had to be Craig. Why not Elise or one of Wayne's girlfriends. Why not Kristina Frye or Walter Mashburne.

But she already knows what the answer is. She can almost hear Jane's voice as he mocks her faith in the goodness of people, her need to be a good person, a nice person. If only she had been more like Jane, more jaded and cynical and broken, then maybe this wouldn't have happened, maybe she wouldn't have trusted Craig so much, loved him so much. But she is who she is, and even after everything, she doesn't want to be anyone different.

The paramedics arrive, and as she steps aside to make room for them, she finds her eyes drawn back to Craig. She can still feel the necklace around her neck, the sting of the chain on her skin when he pulled it off. She loved him, probably more than she has ever loved anyone else, and as she looks at his body she knows that it will take more than just bullets to change that.

She doesn't hate Craig, not yet, but she thinks that maybe she hates Jane, just a little bit.


	5. Jane

Rough hands grab his arms and force them behind his back, and then pat him down as a monotonous voice recites him his rights. He's fairly certain that there must be a person attached to the hands and the voice, and it would be only polite to somehow acknowledge that, but he's finding it difficult to focus, his thoughts slow and disorganised like his brain was running on low battery. He thinks that he hears Cho's voice, but then it's gone, and the hands guide him to a car that he doesn't remember walking to.

The white rage that used to burn within him like napalm is gone, and the voices clamoring inside his head have finally gone silent, leaving him empty and hollow. It's a strange feeling, to feel nothing at all, and he idly wonders if this is what being dead feels like. It isn't peace, but it's enough, and as the car starts he leans back on the seat and closes his eyes, and just lets the world slip by.


End file.
